Mini Episode 14 - Why does everyone remember Kodak as a failure?

Nicole from Chatswood wants to know why the Kodak moment was one worth forgetting?

Dan : (00:18)
Welcome to bad decisions. I'm your host Dan Monheit from Hardhat. And you know how this works today. We have got a cracker of a question from Nicole in Chatswood, Nicole, what you got,

Nicole: (00:27)
Hey Dan, the other day, I bought a disposable camera for my long weekend away, which got me thinking, why does everyone remember Kodak as such a failure?

Dan : (00:35)
Well, because it was okay. Let's be honest. That's a little bit unfair because before it was a failure, Kodak was a lot of other things too. See, while today doing a Kodak is shorthand for a company failing to evolve fast enough at various points in the past, it could have just as easily meant being one of the largest and most successful companies in the world completely and utterly dominating a category or actively seeking to disrupt oneself to innovation.

Speaker 3: (01:01)
50 years ago, Kodak was the third largest company in the whole of America. In 1976, Kodak held 85% of the entire camera market. And 90% of the film market, the digital camera was invented by Steven Sassan a Kodak engineer in 1975

Dan : (01:21)
Numbers aside, Kodak also had a tremendous cultural impact right across the globe Kodak moments even today are how we describe those emotional high points of our lives. And that's to say nothing of that universal giddy moment of anticipation. If you're old enough that came with picking up a part of newly developed photos in a bright yellow envelope from our local chemist or Photoshop. Yeah. Before it's spectacular bankruptcy in 2012, Kodak was everything we think about apple, Google and Amazon today. So why don't we remember any of the good stuff, in fact, why don't we remember most things? Cause when you consider everything we experience our day-to-day lives. The vast majority of it, pretty much just evaporates as soon as the moment has passed. So what do we remember? Well, according to the aptly named peak end rule, it's the emotional highs and lows as well as the endings that make all the difference.

Dan : (02:13)
In other words, not all parts of an experience are created equal when it comes to shaping our memories in a study by Carmen and Schreiber back in 2000 participants were asked to listen to audio tracks, comprised of irritating sounds of varying loudness and frequency. At the end of the track, participants were asked to rate the overall annoyance of what they just heard now, rather than answers being correlated to the track's average level of annoyance. The answers were far more in line with the peak levels of annoyance, as well as how the tracks ended. This perspective helps us understand how a terrible flight home can ruin an otherwise wonderful holiday. Why a beautiful brunch can be tainted by a surprise surcharge on the bill and why despite decades of steady success. The only thing any of us remember of Kodak is a big stinking failure. So while many of us are diligently working to create outstanding end to end customer experience for the brands we represent, we would actually do well to remember that we should be shooting for outstanding memories of those experiences instead after all it is the memory, not the experience that drives our customers likelihood to talk about repeat or recommend the experience to others.

Dan : (03:23)
So if we are going for memories, we should focus on creating one or two emotional high points really late in an experience while ensuring that nothing else is diabolical along the way hand saving their biggest hit for the Encore and the wonderful tradition of lolli bags at the end of kids, parties are both perfect examples of bringing the peak end rule and outstanding memories to life. So if nothing else ask yourself, what's your lollie bag gonna be? So there you have it, Nicole, that is why everybody remembers Kodak as a failure, despite their incredible years of success. If you have got a question that you've always wondered about, perhaps an observation into a weird or wonderful human behavior, shoot it through to me. I would love to hear it and I will do my best to answer it. In an upcoming episode, you can get me all over the internet at Dan Moheit, or you can send me an email, just shoot it through to askdan@hardhat.com.au. That is all for this episode. And I will catch in a couple of weeks, peace out.